Download What is environmental science? capital SUSTAINABLE RULE of 70

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Environmental Problems and Sustainability
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What is environmental science?
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What do environmental scientists do?
Environment is abiotic and biotic factors that affect a living organism.
Ecology is a BIOLOGICAL science that studies relationships. It is part of environmental science.
Other natural sciences are part of envs.
envs.
Social sciences are part of envs because we are part of a living system and because we are altering
altering our
own living system. Consequently, economics, politics and ethics will shape some of the interactions
we have with our environment.
capital
• Our solar capital is unlimitedunlimited-perpetual resource.
• Our natural capital is limitedlimited-some is renewable and some is nonrenewable.
• How governments use their capital affects growth; how peoples use
use their capital affects
growth.
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World Population – J growth curve
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SUSTAINABLE
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Sustainable means providing for the indefinite future
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Without depleting or degrading the earth’
earth’s natural resources
PROTECT CAPITAL
Balance capital w growthgrowth-current and future growth
RULE of 70
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To use resources in such a way as to meet needs now and provide for needs in the future.
Sustainable society:
Meets basic needsneeds-food, clean water and air (SOIL?), shelter
(you should KNOW this)
Way to estimate population growth
Doubling time is years for population to double its size
Rule of 70: 70/percentage growth rate = doubling time in years
US: 70/0.92 (2005 est.) = 76 years
India: 70/1.4= 50 years
Sweden: 70/.17 = 412 years
What is the current world population?
• About 6 billion. You should know this.
• If our growth rate is 1.28%, when will the world population double?
doub le? Is it within your life
time?
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Economic growth
• Increase in capacity to provide people with goods and services
• Population growth (more consumers and producers)
• More consumption per capita
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Economic growth indices
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GNI: gross national income (was GNP: gross national product)
GNI PPP: gross national income in purchasing power parity
GDP: gross domestic product
GWP: gross world product
Per capita GNI (calculated at midyear)
Per capita GNI PPP
Economic development
• Improvement of living standards by economic growth
• Developed and developing countries
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Developed countries
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US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, all countries in Europe
Europe
Highly industrialized
Per capita GNI PPP > $10,750/year
19% of world population
85% of world’
world’s wealth
Use 88% of world’
world’s resources
Generate 75% of pollution and waste of world
Developing countries
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Africa, Asia and Latin American countries
Middle income per capita GNI PPP ~$3~$3-11K
Low income per capita GNI PPP <$3K
81% of population
15% of world wealth
12% of world resources
25% of world pollution and wastes
Increase by 1 million people every 5 daysdays-why?
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Economic Development
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Past/project Population Size
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More people, more disturbance
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• Natural resources support all life
• Currently natural resources are being used unsustainably
• Premature extinction of growing number of the world’
world’s plant and animal species (100(1001000x faster)
• Destruction or degradation of ecosystems
• Depletion of aquifers
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Human Disturbance of Land Area
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Anthropogenic changes contribute to global change
• 73% of habitable land has been disturbed
• Gases emitted into atmosphere largely from burning fossil fuels also from other anthropogenic sources
have altered climate: global warming at in increased rate
• Alterations in climate include shifting arable areas or reduction
reduction in arable land
• Alteration of precipitation by amount, location, and phase
• Alteration of community structure
• Sea level rise
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Global Economic Growth
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globalization
• Integrated world view and environmental world change as a function
function of social and
economic forces
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Economic Globalization
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GNP
>international trade
>transnational corporations
Information and Communication
• Internet
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Environmental Effects
• Global transmission of infectious diseases
• Invasive aliens
• Global transport of natural and chemical pollutantspollutants-air and water
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Resources
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Anything from environment to meet our needs
Food, water, air, soil, shelter, good, transportation, communication
communication and recreation
3 categories: perpetual, renewable, nonrenewable
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Perpetual resource
• SingularSingular-sun
• On human time scale renewed continuously
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Renewable Resources
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Environmental degradation
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Replenished within our life time (less than decades, less than 100
100 years)
Not sustainable if used more rapidly
Forests, grasslands, wild animals, fresh water, fresh air, arable
arable soil
Depletion vs degradation
Highest rate at which it can be used INDEFINITELY without depleting
depleting or degrading
resource is sustainable yield
Urbanization of productive land
Waterlogging or salinization
Deforestation
Aquifer depletion/contamination
Overgrazing grasslands
Reduction of biodiversity
pollution
NONrenewable resources
• Fixed quantity
• Energy resources: coal, oil, natural gas
• Metallic and nonmetallic minerals
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What are alternatives once a nonrenewable resource becomes economically
depleted?
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Costs of extraction and using what is left exceed its economic value.
value.
Find more
Recycle or reuse existing supplies
Waste less; use less
Try to develop substitute
Wait millions of years for more to be made
Recycle versus reuse
• Recycling: products collected and reprocessed into new products
• Reuse: products are used over and over againagain-like refilling a water bottle instead of
making a new water bottle from recycled products or newly acquired
acquir ed resources
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Ecological footprint
• Amount of land needed to produce resources needed by an average person in a country
• It is a way to express environmental impact
• Hectare metric = 100 acres
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Relative ecological footprints per person
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Relative ecological footprints by country
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pollution
• Any addition to air, water, soil, or food that threatens the health,
health, survival or activities of
living organisms
• Point sources of pollution emanate pollution from a single, identifiable
identifiable source
• Nonpoint pollution emanates from many possible sources and are dispersed over a large
area land or in water or air
• Most regulations apply to point pollution sources
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Pollution Prevention
• Once pollutants have entered water, soil, or air in harmful levels,
levels, it is usually too costly to
reduce the pollutants to an acceptable level (superfund
(superfund sites)
• The best solutions would be to prevent pollutants from reaching environment or to reduce
the amount of pollutants
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5 R’s
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Refuse: do not use
Replace: find a less harmful substitute
Reduce: use less
Reuse
Recycle
Tragedy of the commons
• Degradation of common property or free access resources
• Air, water, migratory birds, wildlife species, publicly owned lands,
lands, space
• Everyone contributes to degradation and no one feels responsible for conservation or
restoration
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Major Environmental Problems
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Air pollution
Water pollution
Food supply problems
Waste production
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• Loss of biodiversity
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Main Causes of Environmental Problems
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Rapid population growth
Unsustainable resource use
Poverty
Not including the environmental costs of economic goods and services
services in their market
prices
• Trying to manage and simplify nature with too little knowledge about
about how it works
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Environmental Wisdom Worldview
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Nature does not exist for use and we are not in charge.
There is not always more.
Some forms of technology and economic growth are environmentally beneficial. Those
that are not should be discouraged.
• Our success depends on learning how the earth sustains itself and
and adapting to that pattern.
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Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development
• Economic rewards (gov
(gov.. subsidies, tax incentives, emissions trading) to encourage
environmentally beneficial and sustainable forms of economic development
development
• Economic penalties to discourage env harmful economic growth
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Shifting the dominant paradigm
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From pollution clean up to prevention
From waste disposal to waste prevention
From protecting species to protecting places
From env degradation to env restoration
From increased resource use to more efficient resource use
From population growth to population stabilization by decreasing birth rates
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